Abstract

Peace building in the aftermath of war related violence is a prerequisite for the development of post conflict societies. More often than not, women are assumed to be the only victims in cases of gender based violence and rarely is consideration given to the problems of men who inflict pain on women and the possibility that they are as much the victims of the system as are their women counterparts. Unfortunately, Peace negotiations invariably feature a predominance of males and so women are not adequately represented thereby bringing an imbalance to the outcome of the process. The plight of women as the sole oppressed has been long-sung and perhaps it is time to adopt a more inclusive approach to the subject of gender violence; one that gives equal importance to the men also, as victims of violence. This paper therefore brings to light the trauma of men from the conflict zone and highlights their problems as victims of social pressure and how their displacement by women in the post conflict environment may be responsible for their violent actions against women. The work makes use of existing literature as a source of data and aims to bridge the gap on the need for a parallel approach in the resolution of gender based conflict and violence.